


a melody, a battle cry, a symphony

by nikkiRA



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Anal Sex, Explicit Sexual Content, Getting Back Together, Getting Together, M/M, Memory Loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-24
Updated: 2020-01-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:41:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22392688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nikkiRA/pseuds/nikkiRA
Summary: In Rome in 41 CE, Aziraphale and Crowley come together. Afterwards, they are punished by Heaven and Hell in a cruel and creative way: all memories of each other are purged from their minds. The problem, of course, is that Crowley and Aziraphale can't seem to stop falling in love with each other. Over and over again.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 59
Kudos: 248
Collections: Good Omens Big Bang 2019





	1. Part One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is my entry for the good omens big bang!! there will be three parts, with the last part being posted on my posting date, january 29. will probably post part 2 on monday.
> 
> a big thank you to my betas, sprungfedergirl and my friend catie, god bless her long suffering heart.
> 
> title from florence and the machine
> 
> this story is accompanied by absolutely gorgeous art [ here, by andva-ri. please go give it a like and reblog!! ](https://andva-ri.tumblr.com/post/190541596413/my-piece-for-the-good-omens-big-bang-2019-for) thank you so much to andva-ri for creating this for me i've been looking at it for five hours

The first time takes them a little over four thousand years. 

* * *

It’s the beginning; the sun is high above their heads, and Crowley whispers in the ear of the first woman, and he only feels a little bad about it. And then he slithers up on top of Eden and talks to the angel there, and something settles in beside Crowley’s heart that will stay there for centuries.

They don’t see each other often, in the first years. Crowley keeps an eye on Eve, making sure she’s okay. He’s quite fond of her. He makes himself known to her a couple of times, especially after Cain. He doesn’t quite apologize, but he asks her once if it was worth it. She gives him a long stare and says, “You tell me.” Then she goes to bury her son. 

He doesn’t know what she meant until years later, when she is old and dying. The apology sits on his tongue, tasting bitter, and he asks her again. 

“Was it worth it?”

“Yes,” she answers. “But I am not the one who will have to live with it.”

He thought she meant that she was on the verge of death. He doesn’t realize until centuries later, and the weight of everything settles down around him, when he realizes that Heaven and Hell weren’t really all that different, when he thought about that day all those sunsets ago and whether he had done the  _ right thing.  _

* * *

The rains start coming down. He watches a unicorn run away. He sees the doubt in the angel’s eyes --  _ you can’t kill kids.  _ Aziraphale has the same doubts inside of him that Crowley has, but he can squash those doubts down better than Crowley ever could. But Crowley can see it in his eyes -- he isn’t sure. He doesn’t like this. He is memorizing the face of every child that runs past him. 

Crowley thinks of him on top of that wall, of his face, so earnest:  _ I gave it away.  _ He has always loved humans, Crowley realizes, watching Aziraphale as he tried to keep his face blank. This must be killing him. 

And yet he doesn’t say anything. Crowley might hate him for that, except he knows all too well what happens when you speak up. He doesn’t want to see this angel Fall. He can’t quite figure out why. 

_ It’s ineffable,  _ Aziraphale says, and Crowley knows he means  _ what can I do? I am powerless to stop it.  _

Aziraphale doesn’t watch, but Crowley does. He watches as the waters rise, listens as they scream. Occasionally, centuries later, when he realizes he likes sleeping, he’ll dream about them. If he concentrates, he can feel each one die; he counts them, over and over. 

* * *

They meet occasionally over the years, running into each other during various temptations or blessings. The third time they meet after the flood they don’t even bother to try and keep up appearances; Crowley doesn’t even bother with the temptation he had been planning -- Downstairs had wanted him to put a man named Moses on the wrong track, but Aziraphale has a picnic basket and invites Crowley to come along, so Crowley abandons the plan. It probably wasn’t  _ that  _ important. Aziraphale splits his picnic with him, and Crowley doesn’t usually eat but he does now, taking what Aziraphale offers him and squirming when the angel smiles at him. 

It continues like this -- they meet, they dine together. Aziraphale is an absolute glutton; it is almost endearing. It goes completely against what Heaven stands for, and Crowley loves watching him eat, loves the way he defies Heaven in such small ways. 

They don’t talk much at the Crucifixion; Crowley is largely mourning the man she knew, while Aziraphale has that look on his face he gets when God’s plan doesn’t quite line up with his idea of goodness. It’s a look Crowley kind of loves. They separate without much fanfare.

It is eight years later, in Rome, when things change. 

Caligula is too much. Too much of everything -- Hell will love him. Crowley doesn’t even need to tempt him, Caligula just takes and takes. Crowley will take credit for him, of course, but he has a bad taste in his mouth from the minute he sees the man. So he tries to drown his sorrows away in a small tavern in the city, and then he meets Aziraphale again. 

Aziraphale makes him feel  _ better  _ almost immediately. It’s… worrying, almost, how quickly he can make Crowley’s mood turn, with just a poor choice of words and a plate of oysters. Aziraphale eats more than any human stomach should be able to hold, and Crowley watches him, biting back a smile as he watches Aziraphale indulge. 

And that’s what he does, isn’t it? Aziraphale  _ indulges.  _ Heaven would likely see it as a weakness, but Crowley loves the way Aziraphale has given so much of himself to Earth and to the humans. He is everything Heaven should be, and Crowley  _ loves  _ that about him.

Oh, hang on. That’s something new. 

Or is it? He watches Aziraphale as he eats and drinks, and he thinks about that angel on the wall four thousand years ago, and all of the bits in between. Aziraphale is something… special. Crowley looks forward to his company. There is nothing he likes better, he realizes, than the times they run into each other, when they shuck off their responsibilities and just… just exist as the two of them, without Heaven and Hell. Just sit together and eat and enjoy each other’s company. It’s the best part of his entire existence. 

“Are you staying in Rome?” Aziraphale asks. Crowley hadn’t planned on it. He’d wanted to get the hell out of there as soon as possible. But he finds himself nodding, just for an excuse to stick around Aziraphale a bit more. 

“Haven’t firmed up a place to stay, yet,” he says, offhand, and watches as a flurry of microexpressions make their way across Aziraphale’s face. 

This is what Crowley does best, after all: temptation. 

Eventually Aziraphale settles on a smile and says, “You can come back to where I’m lodging. Lord knows I never actually sleep.”

“I’m sure She does,” Crowley mutters. 

“And I have the most delightful wine,” Aziraphale says, as if he hadn’t heard Crowley. “Oh, won’t you come, Crowley dear?”

Aziraphale asks this as if it were his idea. Another successful temptation. 

Aziraphale was staying with a wealthy connection of his. Crowley did love the Romans and their idea of hospitality, and he enjoyed the private room Aziraphale was given even more. Aziraphale brings the wine out and hands the bottle to Crowley, who drinks straight from it before handing it back to Aziraphale, an eyebrow raised. 

Aziraphale meets his eyes and ignores the cups, placing his lips on the spot where Crowley’s had just been. 

Something stirs in his stomach and Crowley swallows. Aziraphale’s eyes track the movement, settling on Crowley’s throat. 

Something shifts in the air around them. Aziraphale holds the bottle out, and when Crowley takes it their fingers brush. 

They drink. They talk. Aziraphale says they should sober up three separate times before opening up another bottle. It is eventually Crowley who stands up, stumbles, and then says, “Think we should call it a night, angel. M’not eager to figure out what happens to these bodies when you drink your weight in wine.”

“Oh, yes, of course, of course.” Aziraphale speaks quickly. He shoots Crowley a shy look and says, “Feel free to use my bed, dear. It’s very nice, but I don’t really sleep.”

“You should try it, really,” Crowley says. “Nothing like falling into oblivion for a couple hours a day.”

“Just seems like a waste of time, personally,” Aziraphale says, which is just like an angel, really. Always have to be doing  _ something.  _ “But you should sleep. Don’t forget to sober up, first, or you’ll be absolutely miserable in the morning.”

That’s a good point, actually. Crowley purges the alcohol from his system and staggers a little under his new sobriety. “Well, off to bed then,” he says, and then, when Aziraphale makes a noise of agreement and stays seated, he turns around and gives the angel a look that is, hopefully, completely clear in its intent. “Well? Aren’t you coming?”

Six or seven different emotions flit across Aziraphale’s face, and he says, in a strangled sort of voice, “Cra-Crowley.”

“What?” He asks, as if he didn’t know every argument Aziraphale was about to throw at him. “Do you want to?”

“Do I what?”

Crowley shrugs. “It’s a simple question. Do you want to?”

“That’s not the point.”

“That is exactly the point.”

Aziraphale huffs. “It is not as simple as that.”

Crowley leans against the wall, jutting his hip out in a way that has gotten him many appreciative stares over the years. “Sure it is.”

“We are on opposite sides!”

“Our head offices never need to know. They’re not paying attention! You know they’re not paying attention.”

“You -- who knows what they would do to you!”

Crowley waves this off. “Please, seducing an angel? I’d be a hero.”

Aziraphale purses his lips, but Crowley can see the way his eyes track their way down his body. “It’s… it’s not right, Crowley.”

“Do you want to?”

“You keep asking that, but it isn’t --”

“Do. You. Want to.”

Aziraphale opened his mouth a few times before finally taking a deep breath and saying, in a voice that was both stubborn and defeated at the same time, “Yes.”

Even though Crowley had been almost certain that Aziraphale  _ did  _ want this, it still sends a little thrill down his spine to hear Aziraphale say it, so simple:  _ yes. Yes, I want you.  _ Crowley heads over to where Aziraphale is sitting, bends down and tilts his chin up. “Say it again,” he says, low. 

Aziraphale doesn’t do what he’s told, which is unsurprising. Instead he grabs Crowley by the front of his toga and drags him down, kissing him firmly on the mouth. 

Crowley, for all his swagger, for all that he had been the seducer, completely blanks. Aziraphale pulls him down into his lap, holding him tightly and kissing him hard, mouth open beneath Crowley’s. It takes him a few moments that stretch like centuries to catch up, arms coming up around Aziraphale’s neck as he kisses him back with everything he has. 

Now that Aziraphale has been convinced, it takes him no time at all to move. He lifts Crowley up by his thighs, never once breaking the kiss as he lays Crowley down on the bed. He presses his mouth to Crowley’s jaw and moves down his neck as he rucks the toga up around Crowley’s hips, making an amused sort of sound when he feels Crowley’s erection. 

“Making an effort, I see,” he says mildly, as if they were discussing the weather. Crowley lets out a strangled laugh. 

“Aziraphale,” he says. Aziraphale hums as he sucks a mark on Crowley’s collarbone. “ _ Aziraphale.  _ I need you to fuck me. Please.  _ Please.” _

Aziraphale  _ chuckles.  _ Crowley could kill him, if he was thinking at all straight, if he could focus on anything except desire and the way Aziraphale is currently nipping at his ear. “Yes, dear. I thought we had already established that.”

Crowley doesn’t so much as moan as has a sound ripped from his throat at the confidence in Aziraphale’s voice, in the sure way he says it, as if it’s inevitable. Crowley had thought that he was the one in control; he was the one who had started this, he was the one who had both hands on the reins. But as Aziraphale strips him and kisses him like it was the only thing both of them were created for, he realizes that Aziraphale had always been in control, and the idea lights him on fire. He is burning, burning, burning; it’s almost like Falling, except it doesn’t hurt. It feels right. It feels like the only right thing he has ever done in his life. 

“Take these off,” he complains, tugging at Aziraphale’s clothing. “Angel, come on.”

Heaven and Hell help him, he’s desperate. It’s almost embarrassing, how much he wants, how much he  _ needs  _ Aziraphale. He is needy and desperate and aching, arching up against Aziraphale. Aziraphale undresses calmly, kissing Crowley and pressing their naked bodies together, unmoved by Crowley’s desperation. The feeling of Aziraphale’s cock against Crowley’s causes him to break the kiss, tilting his head back and moaning. 

_ “Please,”  _ he says, not caring how pathetic it sounds to beg like this. He’ll deal with the damage to his pride later, once the fire that is alight inside of him has settled down a bit. 

“Please what?” Aziraphale asks. Crowley groans.

“You  _ know,  _ angel.”

“Maybe I want to hear you say it again.” Aziraphale caresses the inside of Crowley’s thigh, back of his hand occasionally brushing Crowley’s cock, and he is aching for more, and a sudden realization hits him like a lightning bolt. 

“You’ve done this before,” he says. It’s clear, now, in the way the angel is so calm, the way he touches Crowley, the way he kisses. Crowley is completely lost in desire and frantic in his desperation to have Aziraphale inside of him, but Aziraphale… 

“I may have had a brief fling with Virgil,” Aziraphale says. Crowley makes a choking noise. 

“Virgil? Are you kidding me?”

“He was very talented!” Aziraphale protests, acting for all the world as if they were simply having a friendly argument while at dinner. “Did you ever read him?”

“Did I ever -- who do I look like to you? No, I haven’t read him, Aziraphale, will you please just  _ fuck me?” _

“You don’t have to get vulgar about it, dear.”

Crowley laughs. “You are. So incredible.”

“Thank you.”

“Was not a compliment. I --” he’s cut off by Aziraphale finally wrapping a hand around his cock. “Oh, fuck, angel --”

“Do you ever stop talking?” Aziraphale lifts his head and looks at Crowley, a soft smile on his face. He presses a hand to Crowley’s cheek. “Really, darling. Do you ever just relax?”

Crowley loves him, he does. This utterly ridiculous angel, this being made of light and love, who Crowley is almost certain is making fun of him. Crowley feels fit to burst with it. Was this how angels felt all the time? Constantly overflowing with warmth? How do they  _ handle  _ it?

It’s a startling realization that he will have to deal with later. For now he surges up to kiss Aziraphale again before saying once again, quiet and firm, “Fuck me.” 

Crowley has a vague understanding of how sex works. He’d been propositioned many times, and lust is one of the easiest temptations, not that he ever did any of the fucking. He puts lust in people’s hearts and then lets them do what they want with it, but he’d never had any interest in the actual act. 

Until now, apparently. Until Aziraphale. 

The point is, Crowley has a vague idea of how sex works. He’s not entirely sure on the specifics, but Crowley doesn’t really  _ need  _ specifics. He just expects to be able to do it, and so when Aziraphale reaches between them he finds Crowley ready. He lets out a strangled noise and leans forward to kiss Crowley, messy and desperate and perfect as he pushes two fingers inside of the demon. Crowley arches, moves his hips, fucking himself on Aziraphale’s fingers, wanting more, and Aziraphale gives it to him, miracling his fingers slick and coating his cock before pushing into Crowley. 

Crowley’s head drops back, exposing his neck, and Aziraphale kisses it. It’s a feeling like nothing Crowley has ever experienced; he is full and complete and connected to Aziraphale, and he thinks,  _ nothing could possibly be better than this.  _ And then Aziraphale moves. 

Crowley doesn’t like speaking well of God, for obvious reasons, but She really had the right idea when designing human bodies, and putting that… whatever it is, that  _ spot,  _ or whatever, inside of the body. Aziraphale clearly knows what he’s doing because every time he thrusts into Crowley he pushes against it, and it was… well, divine. It’s the single greatest thing She had ever created, and Crowley is a little bit annoyed that he had spent so much time on the stars instead of thinking it up himself. 

Aziraphale shifts their position, lifting Crowley’s hips up so they are resting on Aziraphale’s thighs, tilting them up, and Crowley makes a very embarrassing noise as Aziraphale fucks him deeper. Crowley grapples for something to hold onto, feeling untethered and vulnerable as Aziraphale fucks him, and settles just for gripping the edges of the bed. He has to close his eyes because Aziraphale is glowing; not metaphorically, he is literally  _ glowing,  _ light spilling out of him. He leans forward to kiss Crowley again and their teeth gnash together, and Aziraphale bites his lip, and Crowley can’t fucking see because the sun is rising in front of his eyes, and it is the most perfect thing that he has ever experienced. Aziraphale wraps a hand around Crowley’s cock, and it feels like the edges of Crowley’s very existence are blurring. 

They could last a long time if they wanted. Aziraphale could fuck him for days if they liked, and while Crowley makes a mental note of that to come back to later, right now he just wants to come, and he wants Aziraphale to come too. This first time is almost too much; he wants it to be over so they can start again, so he knows what’s going to happen, so he can focus on other things except for what it’s like to have Aziraphale inside of him, like the way he is holding Crowley so tightly he will likely leave bruises, and the halo of light around him, and the way he scrunches his eyebrows, and the intense blue of his eyes. Crowley wants to memorize the way Aziraphale is like this. He wants it burned onto the back of his eyelids, wants it branded onto his skin. He wants to belong to Aziraphale like this, this strange, magnificent angel who indulged in so much, who loved life and humanity and maybe, just maybe, Crowley, even just a bit. And if someone like Crowley could be loved by someone like Aziraphale, then maybe…

Crowley doesn’t know how to finish that thought, so he doesn’t. 

“Crowley,” Aziraphale says, tilting Crowley’s chin up to look him in the eye, and there is so much light and goodness in the way he looks at Crowley, something that could be called  _ love  _ if Crowley weren’t so afraid of the word, and Aziraphale kisses him, open mouthed and dirty, and Crowley comes, spilling onto Aziraphale’s hand and letting out a cry into Aziraphale’s mouth. 

“Perfect, perfect,” Aziraphale mutters, leaning his forehead against Crowley’s and increasing the pace. Crowley is blissed out and sensitive and can’t do much more than moan as Aziraphale fucks him harder. “Perfect, you’re perfect,” he says, and a thrill shoots through Crowley at the words. But before he can think about that Aziraphale lets out a bitten off moan and comes inside of him, dropping forward and resting his weight on Crowley, burying his face in Crowley’s neck and letting out a relieved sob. 

Crowley wraps his arm around the angel, runs a hand up his back and rests it between the spot where his wings would be, rubbing at the muscles there. Aziraphale lets out an appreciative moan, relaxing on top of Crowley and sighing happily. 

“Oh, my dear. That feels wonderful.” Aziraphale is still inside of him; Crowley has the thought that he wants to stay like this for the rest of eternity. Crowley kisses the side of Aziraphale’s head as he massages his back, revelling in the way the angel is wrapped around him. 

“That was nice,” Crowley finally says, because he feels like he has to say  _ something.  _ Aziraphale chuckles and finally moves, pulling out of Crowley and collapsing beside him, resting his head on Crowley’s shoulder and closing his eyes. 

“It certainly was,” he says, a soft smile on his face. Crowley takes advantage of his closed eyes to study his face, to commit to memory every part of Aziraphale. “I find I’m actually quite tired now. That’s never happened before.”

“Virgil didn’t tire you out?” Crowley says, only slightly petulantly. Aziraphale snorts. 

“You’re not seriously jealous of Virgil, are you my dear?”

“No,” Crowley lies. “Why would I be jealous of Virgil? The bastard’s dead and I’m the one having sex with you. I clearly won.”

“You always have, Crowley. That has always been my problem.”

Crowley doesn’t really know what that means, so he just kisses Aziraphale instead. 

* * *

He wakes up with Aziraphale pressed to his back. Crowley groans as he stretches, and Aziraphale says, “Thank heavens, I was wondering when you were finally going to wake up. Sleeping is an awful waste of time, you know.”

Crowley turns over. Aziraphale’s hair is messy and they are both still naked. It is the nicest way he has ever woken up in all of his four thousand years. “And what exactly do I have to do that I need to be awake for?”

“I’m sure you have a long list of temptations that need tending to.”

Crowley leers and rolls over, straddling Aziraphale’s waist. “I suppose you could say that,” he says. Aziraphale rolls his eyes, but his hands fall to Crowley’s hips anyway, and Crowley can feel him hard beneath him. 

Crowley lifts himself up and grabs Aziraphale’s cock, positioning it beneath him and then sinking down. He is open and loose, and Aziraphale slides in easily. He watches Aziraphale’s eyes flutter closed, feels the way his fingers press into Crowley’s hips. It is so much better like this, just as he had thought; he is no longer overwhelmed with the feeling of Aziraphale, no longer unable to believe that such a thing is happening to him. He is free to focus, instead, on the ways they are connected, on the softness of Aziraphale’s skin, the way he bites his bottom lip as Crowley rides him. Crowley can watch the emotions play themselves across Aziraphale’s face, can see and feel the pleasure he is feeling because of  _ him,  _ because of Crowley. That he could create something so beautiful is hard to believe. That he could do something so  _ good  _ should be impossible. But this is the best thing, and it’s theirs. 

“Get on your front,” Aziraphale says suddenly, and Crowley hurries to comply. Aziraphale lifts his hips up and pushes into Crowley again, and Crowley pushes his face in the bed and groans. Aziraphale fucks him relentlessly, fingers bruising into Crowley’s skin, and just as Crowley thinks it couldn’t possibly be better, Aziraphale runs his hands up Crowley’s back to stroke the stretch of skin between where his wings would be. 

Crowley comes without even touching himself, and he practically screams. Aziraphale slows his pace, pulling almost completely out of Crowley before pushing back in with one movement. Crowley is overly sensitive and close to tears as Aziraphale continues this until the angel lets out a small  _ oh  _ and comes, spilling into Crowley once again, fingers continuing to stroke the muscles surrounding Crowley’s wings the entire time. By the time he stops, Crowley is practically sobbing from the overstimulation; Aziraphale lies down beside him and pulls him into his arms, stroking his hair and murmuring soft assurances as he comes back to himself. 

“That’s it, darling,” Aziraphale sighs happily. “Aren’t you absolutely wonderful.” The praise washes over Crowley like a warm bath, and he settles deeper into Aziraphale’s arms; the angel smells like cinnamon, like warm dough and the ever present smell of Heaven, acrid now to Crowley’s nose. He buries his nose in Aziraphale’s neck and inhales. 

And then -- there is a flash of light, and the smell of burning metal, and Aziraphale and Crowley pull away and stare in horror and bewilderment as Beelzebub and Gabriel stand before them, Beelzebub with their nose scrunched up in disgust, Gabriel dusting at some nonexistent spot on his robes. 

“Hello!” He says, all too friendly, seemingly oblivious to the fact that they are both naked and disheveled, with Aziraphale’s cum seeping out of Crowley’s hole. “Goodness, have you caused us quite a bit of trouble! This has never happened before. There was no procedure! We’re making this up as we go along.”

Aziraphale clears his throat politely and then says, with such an air of dignity that he might be talking to Gabriel while fully clothed and sitting on a throne, “And what is the problem?”

Gabriel laughs, as if this was a joke. When Crowley and Aziraphale do not appear amused, he looks between them in confusion. “Surely you’re joking,” he says, spreading his hands. “You must be aware that this is against…” Gabriel does a quick count on his fingers and then says, “All of our rules! This goes against literally all of our rules.”

“What about honouring your mother and father,” Crowley says dryly. Gabriel points up. 

“You think this is honouring Her? When I found out --”

“What about honouring the Sabbath?”

Gabriel cuts off and glares at Crowley. “This is a gross breach of misconduct.”

“This is  _ gross,”  _ Beelzebub speaks up for the first time, looking at Crowley as if he were something incredibly low and abhorrent to the Prince of Hell. Like a priest, or something. “Sleeping with an  _ angel? _ ” Their lip curls up. “Disgusting.”

“You know, it’s rude to barge into someone’s bedroom without knocking,” Crowley says, stretching out and trying to pretend that he wasn’t concerned. It’s not that he’s afraid of the combined powers of Heaven and Hell so much as he is aware of just what the combined powers of Heaven and Hell are capable of. But he doesn’t want to let them know that he’s afraid, doesn’t want to give them more power than they already have. 

He’s beginning to understand that he likes living. And he likes this even more: waking up beside Aziraphale, warm and content. 

“Surely we can discuss this like civilized people,” Aziraphale says. 

Gabriel shakes his head, beginning to pace. “There’s no precedent for this. No protocol to follow. We’re going in blind, really. It’s kind of exhilarating, isn’t it?” He says, looking over at Beelzebub, who does not share his enthusiasm. “We really had to work together to figure out what to do!”

“I don’t suppose you decided to let us off with a warning?”

“Sleeping with an angel,” Beelzebub says, disdain dripping from their voice. “How do you even live with yourself?”

“You’d be surprised,” Crowley says. Aziraphale nudges him very lightly beneath the covers, a silent plea to shut up. Crowley likes that Aziraphale hasn’t moved away from him, hasn’t apologized for what happened, hasn’t worked to put space between them. He is still beside Crowley, still thigh to thigh; a united force against Heaven and Hell. It makes Crowley feel like maybe everything will work out. 

“We could just destroy you both,” Gabriel says, voice upbeat as if he were discussing one of Seneca the Younger’s new plays and was eager to give them his opinion. “But that might be a bit too extreme. I mean, to justify that you’d have to do something truly wild, like… like avert the apocalypse, or something.” He laughs, as if this is a funny joke. “But ol’ Beelzebub and I really put our heads together --”

“Did you get flies in your hair?” Crowley asks, but he is ignored by the entire room. 

“And we decided the best option was just a good old fashioned memory wipe. You really are an excellent human liaison,” Gabriel says to Aziraphale who, Crowley is annoyed to see, looks a little self-satisfied. Crowley kicks him under the blanket. 

Gabriel turns to Crowley next. “And you, uh…” He looks at Beelzebub, who does not offer any support, so eventually he settles on, “I’m sure you’re very useful to your cause as well!”

“Er, excuse me, Gabriel,” Aziraphale says, perfectly polite even now. “What exactly did you mean, a memory wipe?”

“Oh,” Gabriel says, and then laughs, as if it were all some big joke that he’d forgotten to explain. “Not a full memory wipe. Wouldn’t want to have to explain everything to you again. Just, you know.” He gestures to the two of them, still wrapped up in bed. “This. Get this taken care of, wiped away. Clean slate, you know.”

Crowley does not, strictly speaking, have a heart, but he feels it in his throat regardless. “You’ll make us forget each other?”

“Not entirely,” Gabriel says, still fucking smiling, as if Crowley was meant to be comforted by that. “You’ll still be aware that there’s an agent on the, er, other team, shall we say, also working down here, but you certainly won’t remember all of this.” He gives another hand wave in their direction. “So you see. Problem solved!” And he looks between Aziraphale and Crowley expectantly, as if waiting for encouragement that the plan was a good idea. 

Crowley finds that he can’t move. For the first time in so many years, he finds himself completely at a loss for words. He can’t wrap his head around what Gabriel is saying. The idea of having this taken from him, this thing he had wanted and held inside of him for so long and had finally gotten, being taken from him? Of having  _ Aziraphale  _ taken away from him?

He wouldn’t be the same. He wouldn’t be  _ Crowley  _ anymore. He would be the way he was in the beginning, a scared, lost angel thrown to the side and turned into something worse, trying to find his way in a world that no longer had a north. 

Beside him, Aziraphale is very still. And then he says, in a voice drawn tight with rage, “Surely this is an overreaction, Gabriel. I’m sure we can --”

“Oh, Aziraphale,” Gabriel says, and for the first time the friendly tone of voice is undercut by something darker, something more powerful. “This is not a negotiation.”

Crowley grips Aziraphale’s hand beneath the blanket, and Aziraphale squeezes back. 

“Lord Beelzebub,” Crowley starts, but he can already tell there is no hope. He turns away from his boss and their sworn enemy and looks at Aziraphale in badly concealed panic. 

Aziraphale lifts his hand and cups Crowley’s cheek, paying no heed to the others in the room. He gives a reassuring smile. 

“Don’t worry, my dear,” he says softly. “I shall find you again.”

He hears a noise of derision from Beelzebub, but he ignores it. He focuses only on Aziraphale and the warm blue of his eyes. 

They are the last thing he sees before he passes out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> twitter @aravenlikea


	2. Part Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> consistent chapter lengths?? don't know her

He’d been able to avoid the angel for over 4000 years until one rainy morning in Athens. The calendar, when people got around to agreeing on it, would say it was around 194 CE, but Crowley, for what it’s worth, does not and will never bother himself about the various things humans do to try and make sense of their insignificant lives. Sure, he loves them -- humans will continue to surprise and fascinate him for the rest of his eternal life -- but he doesn’t bother himself with keeping track of years. 

The point is that it’s roughly 194 CE, give or take a bit, and Crowley has managed to avoid his archenemy for over 4000 years. He’s been doing a pretty good job of it. He just tries to stay away from any places that carry the unmistakable stench of love. 

Perhaps he should try to find the angel -- Aziraphale, is his name -- and try and figure out just what he’s about, but Crowley knows angels. He used to be one, after all. So he knows exactly what this Principality will be like -- stuffy, a stickler for rules, unwilling to engage in anything fun. At best he would be a complete and utter bore; at worst, he could try to kill Crowley. For someone with a fluid definition of what being  _ alive  _ meant -- no heart, no lungs, no soul -- Crowley was quite a fan of it. Being alive, that is. And he wasn’t eager to jeopardize that. 

So he ignores the angel, and he plans to continue ignoring the angel, until a rainy morning in 194 CE -- ish -- when he’s sitting in a cozy little pub in Athens after a moderately successful temptation, and a sudden, stifling feeling of  _ love  _ hits him like a brick to the face. He is just about to make a hasty escape when a man walks through the door. 

Or, at the very least, a man-shaped being. 

He is not what Crowley had been picturing. He is shorter and plumper, and he exudes an air of warmth and kindness that isn’t usual to feel in an angel. Well, that wasn’t entirely accurate, actually. All angels exuded warmth and kindness, but only to humans. To Crowley, angels all exuded the same kind of energy you would find if you were walking down a dark alleyway and saw a raccoon; he was aware of the pull, but if he got too close he’d likely get his eyes clawed out. 

But the angel is here, and Crowley is feeling exactly what every other human in here must be feeling. It’s like a hug. Crowley can’t stop staring. 

The angel, who has short blond hair that is not remotely in style and a bright smile on his face, gestures to the serving girl and orders what, to Crowley’s above average hearing, appears to be a large amount of seafood, before taking a seat and looking around in a way that Crowley is pressed to call anything other than  _ jovial.  _

He settles immediately on Crowley, of course. Just as Crowley can sense the angel’s undeniable goodness, so too will he be able to sense Crowley’s undeniable… not goodness. Crowley, who wants both to flee and to act like he’s totally calm and collected in the face of his mortal enemy, stares back, fully expecting the angel to stalk out of the bar haughtily. 

Instead he gets up and  _ comes over to where Crowley is sitting.  _ Crowley is gearing up for a fight when Aziraphale takes the seat across from him and sticks out his hand. 

“Hello,” Aziraphale says kindly. “This is quite a coincidence, isn’t it? I mean, 4000 years, I figured it was bound to happen, but it is quite a large world, after all. I ordered quite a large amount of squid, if you would like to join me?”

And Crowley is so taken aback that all he can say is, “Sure.”

* * *

It takes him 300 years to kiss Aziraphale for the first time. 

It’s Wessex, sixth century, and Crowley is damp and annoyed and tired of wearing armour, and so he does what he does best -- he tempts. 

“You know,” he says, neutrally, like someone with no ulterior motives, “I think we deserve a vacation.”

So that’s how they end up on the island, with Crowley sunning himself happily on a blanket while Aziraphale hides under a tree. 

“I just think you’re being ridiculous,” Crowley says, sleepy like a snake in the sun, which is, technically, what he is. “Ssss’not real skin, angel, not really. You’re not going to burn.”

“Oh, I know,” Aziraphale says anxiously from his spot in the shade. “But I can’t help it. I really do think I’m more of an inside person, you know.”

Crowley casts around him for a piece of cloth to put over his eyes to block the sun, not willing to open his eyes or lift his head to properly locate it. It is pushed gently into his hand, and he opens his eyes to see Aziraphale standing over him, sun shining behind him and making him glow soft gold. 

“I suppose you’re right,” he says, sitting down beside Crowley. He sits almost unbearably close in order to keep himself on the blanket and off of the sand, body pressed against Crowley, who abandons the cloth meant to shade his eyes and sits up instead. Aziraphale’s skin is warm, and it looks so soft and…  _ tempting,  _ and without thinking about it Crowley lays back down with his head resting on Aziraphale’s cushy thigh. 

Aziraphale goes very quiet, and Crowley has a sudden vision of the angel taking on his true form and smiting Crowley on the spot, but instead Aziraphale sits back, resting on one of his hands, while he brings the other up to card absentmindedly through Crowley’s hair. Crowley’s eyes close before he can fully stop them, and he sinks deeper into contentment as Aziraphale’s nails scrape lightly against his scalp.

“Do you ever find it odd,” Aziraphale says, jerking Crowley out of what was no doubt about to be a very satisfying nap. “That we went so long avoiding each other, and then in the span of a few hundred years we have become…” 

“Friends?” Crowley supplies, when it becomes clear that Aziraphale isn’t sure how to finish the sentence. 

“Well I’m not sure if…  _ friends  _ is a rather…” Crowley opens his eyes to see Aziraphale glancing nervously up, as if his bosses were listening in. Crowley remembers the stifling air of Heaven, the eyes of the Archangels an omnipresent force that seemed to follow you everywhere, on top of the actual omnipresent force of God Herself. Heaven left no room for anyone who did not follow their rules to the letter. Crowley himself is proof of that.

_ All I did was ask questions,  _ he thinks, looking up at the worried way that Aziraphale bites his lip. There was no room for someone like Aziraphale in Heaven. Aziraphale was  _ too much  _ of an angel. He saw goodness in the places angels weren’t supposed to look for it, like Crowley’s blackened heart. He was what angels should be, but Crowley knows Heaven, perhaps more than even Aziraphale does. He knows what Heaven does to angels like Aziraphale. 

Crowley will drag him down. He sees that now, quite clearly. He should get up and walk away before he sends Aziraphale -- with his soft smiles and softer thighs, his love for food and the way he always looks at Crowley with forbidden fondness in his eyes -- hurtling into damnation. Crowley would be a hero, no doubt. He’d no longer have to worry about Hell keeping tabs on him, about them finding out that so many of the things he claims he’s done were started by humans without his input. Would he be able to live with himself? 

He should get up and leave, but he’s a demon, and he’s selfish, so instead he makes a vow: enjoy this brief time, and then say goodbye. No more getting together to drink wine, no more attending the theatre together, no more of the small, insignificant smiles that Aziraphale gives him that make him feel like he could fight off God and Satan simultaneously. No more Aziraphale. 

He’s only known him for a few hundred years, after all. Compared to four thousand years on earth, plus however long he existed before they started to count, those few hundred years should mean nothing. 

“But don’t you find it odd, my dear?” Aziraphale continues on, as if Crowley weren’t currently having a minor breakdown. “That we went so long avoiding each other, and in such a short span we have become -- er, whatever exactly this is?”

Crowley’s throat is dry, which is distressing, since Crowley isn’t human, so his throat shouldn’t be able to be dry. 

“And what exactly is this?” Crowley asks, since he is apparently a masochist who wants to know exactly what it is he’s losing when he finally walks away. 

“Oh, I’m really not sure,” Aziraphale says. Crowley doesn’t know if it’s better not to have a name to put on it. “But I suppose… you’ll laugh,” he says, cutting off. 

“I will not,” Crowley vows. Aziraphale sighs. 

“It feels as if my soul is calling out to yours,” Aziraphale says quietly, speaking towards the sea as if he were hoping the wind would carry his words away.

Crowley swallows, another new human habit that he’s not entirely happy to have picked up. “We don’t have souls, angel,” he says.

“I know,” Aziraphale says with a small laugh. “But I do not know any other way to put it. I feel drawn to you, inexplicably.” 

Crowley tries to figure out what to say to that. It’s hard to think, what with Aziraphale’s thigh warm beneath Crowley’s head, and the angel’s hand still running gently through his hair, and his body doing decidedly  _ human  _ things without his permission. He wants to tell Aziraphale that he knows how he feels -- it had been like waking up, seeing the angel in Athens those years ago. Like he had been sleeping up until then. Like he had been seeing the world through a fog, and Aziraphale had cut through it and made everything clear. But Crowley has already decided that he has to stop this before it goes too far. 

There’s something in his stomach, some instinct, more human like than demon, that tells him this will end badly. 

He opens his mouth to say -- well, who knows, really, when a raindrop falls and lands squarely on his cheek. Then another, and another, until the sky above them opens up and rain comes pouring down. Crowley glares up at the sky. It’s more of a nuisance than anything, since they can both miracle themselves dry, but it feels very much like a sign. 

_ Alright, You’ve made Your point,  _ he thinks grumpily. He sits up reluctantly and waves his hand, creating a barrier around himself to stop the rain and drying his already soaked through clothes. He turns to look at Aziraphale and sees that he hasn’t stopped the rain; his hair is plastered to his face and his clothes are near see through, sticking to his body in a way that makes Crowley think thoughts that break at least five major commandments. 

Crowley licks his lips -- why is every part of his body suddenly  _ so fucking dry --  _ and looks up at Aziraphale’s face, turned up to the sky with his eyes closed. 

“You’re wet,” Crowley says eloquently. Aziraphale turns to look at him, and Crowley has never seen his eyes so blue. 

Aziraphale smiles at him. There are raindrops tracking their way down his face, and Crowley has the insane desire to lick them away. “Yes. It feels nice, my dear, really. Go on, enjoy the rain on your skin. We can just as easily dry off when we’re done.”

And what can Crowley do, in the face of that smile, of those eyes, bluer than the sea before them? How is he supposed to say no, when Aziraphale pushes his hair out of his eyes and then reaches out a hand to touch Crowley’s face? Aziraphale’s palm is smooth and his fingers are light on Crowley’s cheek; Aziraphale uses his thumb to wipe up a raindrop that is rolling down Crowley’s jaw, and then he --

And then he -- 

And then he brings his thumb to his mouth, licking the raindrop away, and he looks up at Crowley unflinchingly, and Crowley lunges. 

He does not even really get a chance to fully acknowledge the way Aziraphale grips his hair and kisses him back -- he  _ kisses him back  _ \-- because from the time his lips meet Aziraphale’s to the time his eyes close, he remembers. 

He does not relive it; it doesn’t play before his eyes. It’s simply that one moment he is kissing Aziraphale for the first time, and the next all the aching holes that existed inside of him, emptiness with no answer, are suddenly filled. 

He pulls away. Aziraphale cups his cheek and grins, and it feels like he’s seeing colour for the first time. 

“I told you I would find you again,” Aziraphale says, and Crowley can do nothing but surge forward to hug him so fiercely that he knocks them both to the ground. 

“The fucking bastards,” Crowley mutters, arms wrapped tight around the angel. “The fucking bastards.”

Aziraphale chuckles, and Crowley shoves his face into his neck.

Aziraphale rolls them over, pushing Crowley into the sand and nuzzling at him, pressing his lips to every inch of Crowley’s face. Both of them are so wrapped up in each other that the rain is hitting them freely. Crowley pays no attention to it, barely even feels it. 

“Do you think they’ll show up?” Crowley asks, wiping rain out of his face. Aziraphale sighs and lies down on his back, pulling Crowley to him; he settles his head on Aziraphale’s chest, right over his nonexistent heart. 

“I would most certainly bet on it,” Aziraphale says. 

“Would you? Gambling’s not against the rules?”

Aziraphale pinches him. Crowley sighs and does a complicated and completely unnecessary wrist movement, creating a barrier above them and drying them off. 

Aziraphale frowns and reaches up to touch his hair. “Did you make my hair floofier?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Crowley denies smoothly. He rolls onto his back and watches as the rain splashes against the barrier, and Aziraphale laces their fingers together. 

“How long do you reckon we have?”

“Hard to tell,” Aziraphale says. “But I think the only thing we can do is make the most of whatever time we are given.”

* * *

It takes three days. It’s a cruelty Crowley can barely stand, because there are so many moments during those days -- curled around Aziraphale, learning his body in a way he hadn’t been able to before -- when his traitorous brain will think:  _ maybe they won’t come.  _

Falling had hurt him so much. He must be the biggest fool to ever exist, to allow himself to climb so high on the ladder of hope again. 

They come, of course. Gabriel looks around at the island around them with a thoughtful look, as if considering whether he’d like to vacation there later. Beelzebub has the same look of bored irritation that they normally have. 

“Gabriel,” Aziraphale says. “Have you finally taken a vacation day?”

Gabriel does not answer this. Instead it is Beelzebub who speaks, looking at Crowley as if he were a child caught drawing on the walls. “Why can’t you just do as you’re told?”

“Not to state the obvious, Lord Beelzebub, but I’m a demon. None of us do as we’re told.”

“May I ask a question?” Aziraphale says. He still sounds completely polite, but there is an undercurrent to his voice that Crowley is only able to recognize because he has 4500 odd years of knowing Aziraphale back in his head. Gabriel does not pick up on it, but Crowley can sense it simmering beneath the surface. “Why did you make us remember?”

“If you break a rule, and your punishment is being made to forget it, what happens when you break the rule again? If you are just told for the first time over and over, how much of an impact will it really make?” Gabriel spreads his hands and smiles apologetically. “Look, Aziraphale, I’m not an idiot. I knew that making you forget about him would just mean you’d find him again. This is our creative solution. If you want to keep making the same mistake over and over, then you will be made aware of just what exactly you’re being made to lose.” He shrugs, and Crowley closes his eyes. That is a plan too subtle to be Hell’s. That is a plan that has Heaven written all over it. 

Aziraphale opens his mouth, but Crowley touches the back of his hand. This time it is him who turns to Aziraphale to say, “Find me again.” 

Aziraphale meets his eyes, and Crowley sees the same resolve in them that he himself feels, and he knows that he will break his own heart a thousand times over just to once again experience the moment when he remembers Aziraphale again. 

And then, just as quickly as he found it, it’s gone again.

* * *

It is 947 and Aziraphale kisses him on a windy day in Constantinople; they come together quickly, hurried, and Crowley barely gets to remember what it’s like to have Aziraphale inside of him before Gabriel descends. 

It is 1012 and the very first time Crowley meets his arch nemesis he is greeted with a customary kiss. Aziraphale and him hole themselves away for two days before Gabriel shows up, a little embarrassed, admitting he hadn’t been counting on that. 

It is 1591 and Crowley has been in love with the enemy for almost six hundred years. He takes Aziraphale to see  _ Henry VI  _ and watches him more than the play, watches the way his eyes light up, and at the end, as Aziraphale is gushing about it, he leans across and kisses him softly, carefully. 

That time they don’t have sex; Crowley takes Aziraphale back to the inn he’s staying at and they wrap around each other, wings unfurled, exchanging slow kisses and remembering, and that is how Gabriel and Beelzebub find them. 

Each time hurts like Falling all over again, but Crowley knows that there is no power in Heaven or Hell that can stop him from falling in love with Aziraphale over and over again. 

* * *

It is 1601, and Crowley’s sworn enemy is in the Globe Theatre with him. 

The angel stands out. His clothing is accurate enough, but the stark white of his out of style hair draws eyes, as does the way he keeps participating, shouting encouragement at the stage and throwing grapes into his mouth. Crowley can feel the love wafting off of him from the other side of the theatre, although it doesn’t make him feel quite as sick as feeling love normally does. It’s almost… nice. Warm in his chest, like a favourite blanket wrapped around him. Almost familiar. 

Ridiculous, of course. It might just be because the angel has been on earth for as long as Crowley has, so his love feels the same as the humans. Whatever it is, Crowley wants it far away from him. 

Except he can’t stop  _ staring,  _ and eventually he finds himself wandering away from his spot in the corner, circling around the angel like he’s prey and stealing a grape from his hand. He can’t concentrate on the play (he doesn’t particularly want to -- he prefers the funny ones), so he might as well have a bit of fun. Fucking with an angel might get Hell off his back for a few years. 

“Enjoying the show, angel?” He asks, voice low and slightly threatening. He isn’t sure what he’s threatening, exactly, unless it’s to eat all of the grapes, but he’s hoping his reputation will be frightening enough that the angel will be properly wary of him. 

Instead what happens is he turns to Crowley with bright eyes and says, “I thought I sensed you! Do you like Shakespeare?”

Wow, Crowley must be losing his touch. No hint of fear at all in the angel’s eyes, just an eagerness to discuss the playwright and his works. Crowley almost feels embarrassed. 

“I prefer the funny ones,” he says, as Hamlet starts his damned soliloquy over again. “Although I think my favourite is  _ Henry VI _ .” If Satan himself came up and asked Crowley what the hell he was doing, Crowley couldn’t answer, but the angel hands him another grape as if he doesn’t see the weirdness in the two of them standing here talking like this. 

“Oh, mine too. I can’t explain why, really, it just makes me feel… complete, I think.” He laughs. “Sounds silly, doesn’t it?”

“No,” Crowley says immediately. “No, it doesn’t.” Because he feels that, too. As if some random play held the secret to his happiness. It was a completely ridiculous thought, but here this angel was, telling him he felt the same. 

5500 years, and the world was still surprising him. 

“You’re Crawley, if I remember?”

“Crowley. I changed it.”

“I’m still just Aziraphale.”

_ Aziraphale.  _ Crowley is certain he’s never heard the name -- Hell had sent him a report that simply said  _ there’s an angel on earth too, watch out  _ \-- but it feels familiar. “Aziraphale,” he says, testing it out, and it feels right on his tongue, as well worn as his own name. “Are you staying in London long?”

Aziraphale sighs. “I have to go to Edinburgh,” he says morosely. “Apparently I have to ride a  _ horse.” _

Crowley winces. “Hard on the buttocks, horses. Major design flaw, if you ask me.” Aziraphale smiles, throwing another grape in his mouth. “I have to go to Edinburgh as well, actually. Have to tempt someone to steal some cattle, or something.”

“At least you don’t have to ride a horse,” Aziraphale says. He frowns slightly, head turned away, and Crowley looks over at Shakespeare in time to hear him say, “It’ll take a miracle to get anyone to come see  _ Hamlet. _ ”

And Crowley gets an idea. A temptation, just like he’s good at. 

“Why don’t we go up to Edinburgh together,” he says. “Keep each other company. It will distract you from the horse.”

Aziraphale looks at him, biting his lip. Crowley watches this with a funny feeling in his stomach. “Oh, I don’t know, Crowley. We’ve only just met, you know. And you are a demon, after all.”

Crowley was expecting this, and he’s ready for it. “How about this. Come with me, and I’ll turn  _ Hamlet  _ into a hit.”

As he thought, this gets Aziraphale’s attention. He looks at the stage, and then at the listless crowd, and then he looks back at Crowley. “Why?” He asks. 

Crowley turns away, watches Shakespeare's miserable face. Then he says, “It gets awfully lonely, doesn’t it? Being the oldest being on this planet.”

He doesn’t turn to look at Aziraphale, too anxious to see what the angel thinks of this confession. It’s something raw and vulnerable from deep inside of him that Crowley hadn’t even meant to speak aloud, but he doesn’t regret it. He doesn’t know why, doesn’t know what that means. The angel beside him is his enemy, but it doesn’t feel like that. It feels like Aziraphale is the only being in the entire universe that can actually understand Crowley. 

“All right,” Aziraphale says softly, and when Crowley forces himself to look over he can see a determined smile on his face. “Let’s go to Edinburgh together. But this means you’ll have to ride a horse, as well.”

Crowley smiles, an uncomfortable stretching of his cheeks that makes him think, inexplicably, that he has never been this happy. 

He doesn’t bother to ask himself why. He’s used to not having all the answers. He just takes another grape, instead. 

* * *

It is Paris in 1793, and Aziraphale has gotten himself locked up in the Bastille. Crowley wonders how he managed for so many centuries before Crowley came along. 

“Animals don’t kill each other with clever machines, angel, only humans do that.”

Aziraphale turns around, a smile on his face that drops immediately upon seeing Crowley’s outfit. “Oh, good Lord.”

Crowley wants to tell him not to include Her. “What the deuce are you doing, locked up in the Bastille? I thought you were opening up a bookshop.” That was what Aziraphale had told him, anyway, a decade or so again when they had met last for tea. The world was beginning to change so much around them, Aziraphale had said. He wanted to stay still for a while and watch it turn. 

It wasn’t a bad idea, actually. Crowley had been thinking of maybe doing the same. London was a city that could keep a demon like him busy for a long time. 

“I was. I got peckish.” At Crowley’s look, he continues. “Well, if you must know, it was the crepes.”

Crowley thinks his head might spin. The idea of Aziraphale heading to France, in the middle of a revolution, looking like an aristocrat? To get  _ crepes?  _ It was too much to believe. It was so incredibly  _ Aziraphale  _ that it almost hurt to think about. 

“You’re lucky I was in the area,” he drawls, after Aziraphale explained about his note from Gabriel. 

“I suppose I am,” Aziraphale says, in a tone like he’s not too happy about it. Crowley wonders if his pride has been damaged. “Why are you here?”

“My lot sent me a commendation for outstanding job performance,” he says, trying to sound neutral, trying not to let Aziraphale -- or any other occult forces that might be listening in -- know how sick it made him, watching the humans think up such creative cruelty without help. That’s how he could tell it wasn’t Hell; Hell could never be as creative as humans were. 

Aziraphale gets a stern look on his face. “So all this is your demonic work?”

“No!” Crowley says, a little too vehemently then he would like. “The humans thought it up themselves, had nothing to do with me.”

“Well. I suppose I should say thank you for the rescue,” Aziraphale says. He  _ shouldn’t,  _ really. Hell would lose it if they knew Crowley had rescued an angel, and they weren’t the type to send notes. But he doesn’t tell Aziraphale off. He wants -- 

Oh, it’s so ridiculously absurd, but he wants the angel to know that Crowley is there for him. Aziraphale’s gratitude washes over him like a warm fire-bath (very good for the skin, they were), and it makes him feel like he can be  _ more.  _

It’s a ludicrous thought, of course. Crowley will never be more. 

“What about if I buy you lunch?” Aziraphale says suddenly. Crowley gives him a once over with raised eyebrows. 

“Looking like that?”

Aziraphale looks down at his aristocratic outfit and then rolls his eyes, flicking his wrist and taking on the guise of a fairly stylish revolutionary, swapping with the unfortunate executioner. “Hardly counts as a miracle,” he says unapologetically, when Crowley gives him a look. 

“Dressed like that, he’s asking for trouble,” Crowley says, because he thinks it will make Aziraphale smile and it does. 

The two of them get crepes, because Aziraphale’s face lights up at the thought, and he doesn’t think God Herself could disappoint Aziraphale when he looks like that. Crowley finally understands why humans always added halos of light to their holy figures. This must be what it’s like when the humans looks directly at the sun. Crowley had assisted in making the actual sun, and the expression had always puzzled him. 

Now he understands. 

* * *

It’s not a nightmare, because demons don’t get nightmares. That’s not him being philosophical, it’s an undeniable fact. Demons, strictly speaking, don’t have brains, or hearts, or anything within them capable of spinning a story out of nothing. Demons are the antithesis of the angels, of the creators; they exist only to destroy. Humans are held together by nerves and muscles and tissues and brains and the never ending impulse to get out there and  _ do something.  _ Demons are held together largely by spite and, increasingly over the centuries, exceedingly mediocre coffee. 

So it’s not a nightmare, because it can’t be. But then what is it?

The dream that can’t be a dream is this: Aziraphale has him pinned down to the bed, and Crowley’s cock is in his mouth. And Crowley is begging him to let him come, but all he can see is Aziraphale’s eyes, so ridiculously blue, and he pulls off with a laugh. He kisses Crowley’s mouth, swallowing the broken pleas, and then he --

Crowley wakes up before they can go further. 

He doesn’t know what time it is. He doesn’t know what  _ year  _ it is. He grips the blankets so tightly they tear and then miracles a bucket of water, which he promptly sticks his head in. 

What the fuck  _ was that?  _ It wasn’t a dream, it couldn’t be a dream. Crowley wasn’t capable of that, couldn’t make new thoughts, new memories, couldn’t  _ create.  _ So those images -- Aziraphale between his legs, a smirk on his lips that Crowley wanted to bite, the way he had begged  _ Aziraphale, angel, please, please, please --  _ they had to have already been in his head. That was the only answer. But all that did was create more questions.

He shouldn’t have those images in his head, but he  _ does,  _ which means they’re memories. It’s the only explanation. And if they’re memories… if this had happened before, and he doesn’t remember, that must mean… 

Crowley miracles a glass of water, and then he changes it into whiskey. A little bit like Jesus, if Jesus had been a high functioning alcoholic who had just found out his head had been tampered with. 

Crowley drinks three glasses of whiskey and then pushes his palms into his eyes. He can’t get the image of Aziraphale on his knees out of his head. 

But he has to, because he has to think  _ rationally  _ about this. There are images in his head that he has no recollection of, but they exist, and they’re real, and Crowley knows how demons work, how he works. If they’re there, it means it  _ happened.  _ Which means it had been taken from him. 

Which means him and Aziraphale are in more trouble than either of them could have known. All this time he thought they were being clever, but Heaven and Hell had their eyes on them the whole time. 

Crowley gets up and sends a message to Aziraphale. 

* * *

“I thought you were sleeping,” Aziraphale says suspiciously as Crowley joins him on the bridge. 

“I woke up,” Crowley says distractedly. It is 1862, and he’s been asleep for almost 60 years. The 18th century had worn him out, and he had gotten enough of a look at the 19th century to realize he wanted nothing to do with it. He had left Aziraphale a note explaining his plan, and then he had gone to sleep for sixty years, and then he had woken up with Aziraphale’s name in his mouth. 

He is watching the angel carefully, but he is already pretty sure that Aziraphale doesn’t know. Aziraphale was not capable of deception, not because he was an angel but because he was  _ Aziraphale.  _ If Aziraphale knew, there was no way he would have been able to keep it a secret from Crowley for so long. 

And then Crowley falters. 

His plan had been to storm up to Aziraphale and explain what had happened, to share the memories he had in his head that were playing on repeat, to figure out just what exactly Heaven and Hell had done to them. But now he is with Aziraphale, and he is throwing bread at the ducks, and he is so much more than Crowley could ever be. So much better. 

Aziraphale has a specific view of the world and of his part in it, and no matter how naive it is, Crowley doesn’t want to be the one to ruin it. 

So he switches tactics. 

“Look, I’ve been thinking,” he starts, fishing the paper he had written on at his flat out of his pocket. “I need a favour. For if it all goes… pear-shaped.”

“I like pears,” Aziraphale says, still feeding the ducks, and Crowley comes to the sudden realization that he has loved him for much longer than he had originally thought. 

Aziraphale does not take kindly to Crowley’s back up plan, to his request for holy water. It was an idea he’d come up with back at his flat as a solid Plan B, but now that he’s unwilling to burst the bubble Aziraphale is so happy to live in, it’s his only option. 

He won’t let them do it again, whatever they did. He won’t let them fuck with his head, won’t let them steal his memories, reshape his life into something they approved of. He’d rather die. 

“I’m not an idiot, Crowley,” Aziraphale says. And then: “Do you know what kind of trouble I’d be in if they knew I’d been fraternizing? It’s completely out of the question.”

The word hits Crowley like a slap. For all that they had been, for all the smiles Aziraphale had given him, for all the new memories in his head of the two of them entwined -- to have it reduced to that? To  _ fraternization?  _ It hurts in a way he never would have expected. 

“I have lots of other people to fraternize with, angel,” he spits out, but it won’t hurt Aziraphale the same and he knows it. 

“Of course you do,” Aziraphale says stiffly. 

“I don’t need you,” Crowley says, desperate for some kind of reaction, for anything to let him know that Aziraphale cares even a  _ little.  _

“Well, and the feeling is mutual! Obviously!”

And that’s that. Aziraphale storms off, leaving Crowley behind with a head full of memories he’s no longer certain he wants. 

And Crowley goes back to sleep. 

* * *

The door to the store is locked, of course, but Crowley miracles it open. He finds Aziraphale in the back, whiskey in front of him. Crowley pours himself a glass and sits down across from him. 

“Crowley,” Aziraphale says, slightly slurred. He waves his drink around, and it very firmly does not spill over the sides. “I didn’t know you were awake.”

“Woke up a few months ago,” Crowley says, pouring himself a drink and sitting down beside Aziraphale. His century long sleep had been restful, and he felt like a new demon. He had meant to get around to seeing Aziraphale, but he hadn’t known how to bring it up. 

This wasn’t exactly what he had wanted. 

He watches as Aziraphale takes a few hearty gulps of scotch without the drink levels of the cup ever changing. Lots of little miracles; Crowley hopes Heaven doesn’t give him flak for it. 

Aziraphale waves his drink around more. “And you didn’t come to see me? I’m hurt, Crowley.” He is so drunk that Crowley can’t tell if he’s being sarcastic or not. 

“I wasn’t aware you would want me to.”

“Oh, don’t be absurd, Crowley. It’s been 100 years.”

It hasn’t, and that gives Crowley pause. It’s been forty, give or take, since that disastrous meeting in St. James Park. He takes a sip of his drink to give him time to consider what to say to this. He’s unsure how to act around Aziraphale when he’s like this, drunk and mourning. Are they just going to ignore what happened? The way Aziraphale had said  _ fraternizing,  _ the way he’d stormed off? 

Crowley still can’t look at him without remembering.

“Are you saying you missed me?” He asks, because he’s a demon, and demon’s love pain, even if it’s their own.

“No,” Aziraphale says, and Crowley closes his eyes, lets the words hit him like bullets. “No, it’s just, well. It’s nice to have somebody here, is all I mean.”

“Well,” Crowley says, shifting. “I guess --”

"‘If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.’"

Crowley swallows. 

“We didn’t even tell them that, you know,” Aziraphale says. “We never said anything about it. The humans just…”

“Did it themselves,” Crowley fills in. “Yeah. They do that.”

“He just wasn’t the same after his imprisonment,” Aziraphale says sadly. “I offered to give him some money, but it wasn’t just that.”

Crowley has no idea what to say to this. He had slept through all of Oscar Wilde’s lifetime; he hadn’t even known about him or Aziraphale, but as soon as he had heard about the man’s death and who he was, he knew, somehow, that Aziraphale needed him. 

Well, not him. But -- someone. 

“You must think I’m so foolish,” Aziraphale says softly. “To be so upset like this. To have gotten attached to a human with their insignificant life spans.”

Crowley shakes his head. He does think it was a little foolish, if he’s being honest, but he isn’t going to say that to Aziraphale when he’s so fragile. And besides, Crowley isn’t sure if he really has a leg to stand on. Maybe he hasn’t ever gotten attached to a specific human, but he had certainly gotten attached to humanity as a whole. 

He still remembers all the children who drowned in the flood. 

“Did you love him?”

“I love everyone.”

Crowley rolls his eyes. “You know what I mean.”

Aziraphale thinks about this. “I don’t know. I don’t know if it’s possible to love them. I can never truly understand, just as they could never truly understand me. We just don’t have…” He pauses, and then looks at Crowley with an expression that he can’t read. “Shared life experiences, I suppose.”

Crowley’s not sure what he’s supposed to say to that. Aziraphale is drunk and sad. Crowley should leave him to his mourning. 

“Will you stay with me?” Aziraphale asks, and Crowley can’t stop himself from thinking  _ until you tell me to leave.  _

He just nods, not trusting his voice. He’s afraid that if he opens his mouth he’ll do something crazy, like tell Aziraphale everything. Aziraphale smiles at him, weak and sad but present, and then he says, “I can never tell what you’re thinking, with these blasted things on.”

That’s rather the  _ point  _ of the sunglasses, but Crowley still stays silent, even as Aziraphale reaches up and takes them off. 

Some unidentifiable emotion passes over Aziraphale’s face, and Crowley stays completely still. What does he see in Crowley’s eyes? Can he see the love, the adoration, the  _ worship  _ that lives inside of Crowley? Can he see past the demonic eyes and into his head, can he watch the never ending reel of the two of them tangled together?

He’s not sure what Aziraphale sees, but he says, voice thick, “Oh, Crowley,” and then, before Crowley can stop him, before he can say  _ hang on your good friend and lover just died,  _ Aziraphale leans forward and kisses him. 

And oh, it’s just like all the other times. One moment there is nothing, and the next --

“Crowley,” Aziraphale says. It’s half a sob, half a prayer. 

Crowley pulls away, a complete being again, and says, rather peevishly, “Fraternizing?”

“Oh, all right, maybe I was a bit harsh, but  _ really,  _ dear, you asked me for a suicide pill! What was I supposed to do?”

Crowley crowds against him, crawling into his lap and nosing at Aziraphale’s hair. “I remembered. I dreamed it, when I was asleep. All the memories they took.”

Aziraphale holds him so tightly he thinks he might burst. “Crowley,” he says. His voice is soft, but Crowley can still hear the way it shakes. “Can we just stay like this? Until they come?”

Crowley nods, adjusting the two of them on the couch so he is lying back with Aziraphale on his chest. Aziraphale feels so fragile between his arms. So easily torn away. 

“I’ll have lost you both, now,” Aziraphale says softly, voice breaking. 

“I’m going to fight them,” he says, but Aziraphale lifts his head.

“Oh no, you musn’t. They could so easily make it worse. They could make it so we never remember. Crowley,” he says, sternly. “If you fight, we will both lose.”

He’s right, of course. He’s always right. 

“I hate this,” Crowley says. It is a woefully inadequate way to describe his feelings, but it’s all he has. Aziraphale sighs and nestles into him a little more. 

Aziraphale doesn’t look up when Gabriel and Beelzebub appear, but Crowley does. He tightens his arms around Aziraphale and looks Gabriel in his perfect, purple eyes. 

“We won’t stop,” he says. Gabriel shrugs, like it’s no skin off his back, before looking around. 

“It’s rather dusty in here, isn’t it?” He looks back at Crowley. “Doesn’t it hurt? Over and over again?”

Crowley doesn’t answer, but he doesn’t have to. Gabriel can see it in his eyes, how it feels to lose Aziraphale over and over and over. 

Gabriel just grins and snaps his fingers. 


	3. Part Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow y'all i really didn't know if i was going to be able to do this lmao 
> 
> the last part!! and a note about it: you'll notice that in this i tend to skip and summarize canon events, or only include certain parts of conversations. this is for a few reasons, not least because i had neither the patience nor the time to painstakingly recreate every canon scene, but also because i didn't want to bore anyone?? you've seen it before, and if you want to see it again you can. recounting every little bit of canon would have gotten tedious for both of us 
> 
> anyway enjoy!!

Crowley has been exerting an awful lot of his energy keeping his feet dry. It’s cold and wet, perhaps his two least favourite things, and he’s been smoking the most foul smelling cigarette, because a fresh faced German had given it to him, and it would have been rude not to accept. 

It’s Christmas 1914, and Crowley is on the Western Front, watching a couple of British and German soldiers kick a can around in the world’s saddest game of football. He almost wants to miracle a proper ball for them, but he doesn’t want to draw too much attention to himself. Hell had sent him here to put a stop to all of this -- a single gunshot into the crowd would have been enough to spark outrage and break the fragile peace. He wouldn’t even have to kill anybody. 

Hell, Crowley thinks, as he watches two men from opposing sides exchanging buttons, can sod right off. 

“Oi,” he says, as a young man runs past him. Crowley holds out the offending cigarette, which had gone unlit without attention. “Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas!” He returns, plucking the cigarette from Crowley’s fingers and running off to join the game. 

Someone comes to stand beside him, but he doesn’t pay them any attention. Something dangerous and forbidden is alive in his chest right now. Something he might have called  _ hope,  _ if hope weren’t such a dangerous thing for a demon to have. 

“It’s inspiring to watch, isn’t it?” The person beside him says. Crowley does not answer, because he does not want to give the impression that he is interested in small talk. “I do hope you aren’t here to ruin it. I’d hate to have to fight you for the first time in six thousand years.”

Crowley looks beside him in wonder, and sure enough his archenemy is there beside him. Any fear the angel might have inspired is rather undermined when he takes a drag from the cigar and then frowns down at it, saying, “Oh, that’s rather disgusting, actually. Do you smoke?”

“No,” Crowley says, staring as Aziraphale grabs a passing German and hands the cigar off to him. He’s feeling incredibly unsettled, because he hadn’t sensed the angel. They had mostly tried to avoid each other over the years, but Crowley should have sensed him the minute he entered the area. He should have carried the feeling every angel did -- uncomfortable warmth, uncomfortable kindness, and the biting smell of love. 

Crowley can sense all of that, of course, but it’s not  _ uncomfortable.  _ He had put it down to the humans around him. Why did the angel not stand out to him? Why did he feel so… familiar?

Aziraphale turns to him, a stern expression on his face. “Now, Crawley --”

“Crowley,” Crowley interrupts. “Changed it.”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale repeats. “I quite like that, actually,” he says, as if they weren’t mortal enemies, as if they weren’t standing in the middle of No Man’s Land watching two armies exchanging jokes and gifts. “Look, I’d really rather not fight, you know. I’m a little -- well, I’m a bit soft, if I’m being honest, and an angel is always honest.” Crowley had some Thoughts about that, but he decides not to bring them up. “What I’m trying to say is I will fight you, if you try to ruin this. I won’t be happy about it, but I’ll do it. And I --”

“Stop nagging,” Crowley says, unsure how to act in this situation, unnerved by the strange creature beside him, and so defaulting to being a bit of a brat. “I’m not going to ruin it.”

“Oh, really?” Aziraphale smiles, and the only word for it is  _ angelic,  _ which only serves to annoy Crowley more. “Thank you, Crowley, truly.” Crowley really doesn’t like the way this odd angel says his name (by which he means he  _ really  _ likes the way he says his name). 

“They wanted me to,” he says, looking back out over No Man’s Land. “They wanted me to start the fighting again. But I -- well. It’s Christmas.” He’s not sure why he’s telling the angel this, why he’s admitting that he’s not doing his job. He has the absurd thought that he wants Aziraphale to be proud of him, which doesn’t bear thinking about, since he’s an  _ angel,  _ and they don’t even know each other. But Aziraphale’s face softens, and Crowley feels that forbidden hope in his chest once again. 

It’s probably just because Aziraphale has been on Earth for as long as Crowley has. Both of them have changed into something completely new; they’ve each become a little bit human. It makes sense, then, that Crowley wouldn’t respond to him the way he would to another angel. 

“This was your doing, then?” Crowley asks, nodding out at the crowd of people. For some reason that he isn’t willing to examine this upsets him a little. 

“No,” Aziraphale says. Crowley looks at him in surprise. “No, this was all them.”

The two of them fall silent; two ancient creatures stunned into silence. Will humanity ever stop surprising him?

The two of them stay the night, watching as the humans buried their dead, taking advantage of the truce to recover their wounded. It’s cold and damp, and if he keeps miracling his feet dry Hell is sure to take notice; he looks down morosely at his wet feet and sighs. 

“Here, dear,” Aziraphale says, and with a snap Crowley’s feet turn blessedly dry. 

“Er,” he says. “Thank you.”

“Best not to mention it, I think,” Aziraphale says. Crowley nods. 

Later, when the singing starts, Aziraphale nudges him. Crowley looks at him -- hair so blond it’s nearly white, eyes bright and blue, lips slightly chapped (no, best not to focus on those) -- and he joins in with the soldiers as they sing carols. 

* * *

The thing about war is that Crowley has seen lots of it. The two things that humans were really, really good at it, when you got down to it, was sex and war. If they weren’t fighting, they were fucking. Two things that Crowley really couldn’t bring himself to care about, if he was being honest, even though they were two of Hell’s Best Performing Sins. 

Most wars Crowley just sat out, taking credit for the atrocities that the humans came up with and trying not to think too much about the casual cruelty they were capable of. But this one -- well, Crowley couldn’t just sit back and do  _ nothing.  _ But he also couldn’t wave a white flag and not expect Hell to notice, which meant he’d have to be a little sneakier about this. 

He could do that. He could be sneaky. He was a snake. He was  _ the  _ snake, actually. 

Which is how he ends up working as a double agent for the British. It’s a far cry from not getting involved, but what was he supposed to do, just sit back and  _ watch?  _

This position is how he finds out about the Bookseller. Apparently he was contacted by the Germans, who wanted his books of prophecy, and the Bookseller had immediately taken this information, rather helpfully, to the British. 

The problem is that Crowley is pretty sure Rose Montgomery’s whole deal is a load of shit, frankly, and there’s only one bookseller in London that he can think of that would have the books of prophecies Hitler was interested in. 

Crowley had seen Aziraphale a few times since the Christmas Truce. He popped into the bookshop occasionally, first to see what Aziraphale would do, when meeting Crowley without a truce in place, and then because Aziraphale had called to tell him that he had found the nicest bottle of wine, and it was no fun drinking by himself. Crowley had shown up to that meeting afraid he was about to be ambushed by angels and killed, but turns out Aziraphale was just very passionate about wine. Since then they had gotten together a few times -- a couple meetups at St. James park, a few dinners (Aziraphale was an utter glutton, to Crowley’s eternal delight). They weren’t  _ friends,  _ or anything like that, but it was nice, after so many millennia of being alone, to be able to call on someone when he couldn’t remember insignificant moments of history, like who had premiered in the first sold out showing of Hamlet (Crowley still wasn’t entirely certain why he had turned it into a hit -- he really did prefer the funny ones) or what had been served when Caesar had declared himself  _ dictator perpetuo  _ (it was the oddest thing, really, but Crowley had such a hard time recalling Ancient Rome). 

The point is, well… Crowley has gotten rather fond of Aziraphale. And discorporation was an awful lot of paperwork, and rather inconvenient. And…

Crowley had a whole list of excuses, but truthfully something about the angel made him feel  _ alive.  _ He tries not to think about that too much, tries not to admit it to even himself, but he certainly isn’t going to let him get shot by a couple of idiot Nazi’s. 

Which is how he finds himself more or less skipping down a church aisle, feet burning in his boots, as three of the four people look at him in utter confusion, and the last looks at him in what might be called exasperation, 

“Sorry, consecrated ground,” he says, jumping from foot to foot. “Like being at the beach in bare feet.”

“What are you doing here?” Aziraphale says, not sounding at all concerned about the gun in his face. 

“Stopping you getting into trouble,” he says, still hopping. 

Aziraphale looks between him and the Nazi’s and then says, “I should have known. Of course, these people are working for you!”

“No!” Crowley says, a little offended. “They’re a bunch of half-witted Nazi spies running around London, blackmailing and murdering people! I just didn’t want to see you embarrassed.”

“Mr. Anthony J. Crowley,” one of them says, and Crowley tips his hat. “Your fame precedes you.”

“Anthony?” Aziraphale asks, turning away from the Nazi’s and frowning at Crowley. 

“You don’t like it?”

“No, I didn’t say that. I’ll get used to it,” Aziraphale says, and Crowley files that away to look at for a later date, when he isn’t surrounded by other people.  _ I’ll get used to it.  _ Implying Aziraphale would want him around long enough to grow accustomed to the name. 

“The famous Mr. Crowley!” One of the Nazi’s says. “Such a pity you both must die.”

“What does the ‘J’ stand for?” Aziraphale asks, ignoring the Nazi’s once again. 

“Just a ‘J’, really,” he admits. He thought it looked cool, truthfully. And it does. 

“Enough babbling,” one of the humans says, clearly unnerved by how little the two of them fear them. “Kill them both.”

Right. That’s what he was doing. “In about a minute, a German bomber will release a bomb that will land right here. If you all run away very, very fast, you might not die. You won't enjoy dying, definitely won't enjoy what comes after.”

“You expect us to believe that? The bombs tonight will fall on the East End.”

Oh, Nazi’s, honestly. Always thought they knew best. “Yes. It would take a last-minute demonic intervention to throw them off course. You're all wasting your valuable running-away time. And if,” he says, looking at Aziraphale meaningfully, “in 30 seconds, a bomb does land here, it would take a real miracle for my friend and I to survive it.”

“A real miracle,” Aziraphale echoes, cottoning on rather quick, thankfully. 

“Kill them,” the crotchety old Nazi says. “They are very irritating.”

Crowley just points up and waits. 

Something warm encases him as the bomb hits, a feeling undeniably belonging to Aziraphale, and Crowley throws out the last bit of his energy -- burned out from spending all that time on holy ground -- and protects the worn out bag. 

When the dust settles he takes a seat on some rubble, cleaning his glasses, grateful that the ruined church no longer burned him. Aziraphale stands looking rather lost in the wreckage. 

“That was very kind of you,” he says haltingly. Crowley looks up in annoyance. 

“Shut up,” he says. Doesn’t want  _ that  _ getting around. 

“Well, it was,” Aziraphale says stubbornly. “No paperwork, for a start,” he says with a small smile, but then the smile drops off his face and he says, rather distressed sounding, “Oh, the books! I forgot all the books! Oh, they’ll all be blown to --”

Crowley puts his glasses back on, standing up and going over to one of the piles of rubble, plucking the book bag out of a dead hand and then passing it off to the angel. Aziraphale looks at him with wonder filled eyes, and Crowley finds he can’t quite meet his stare. 

“Little demonic miracle of my own,” he says. “Lift home?”

* * *

It’s easy, after that, for the two of them to fall into easy familiarity. It is so easy it’s almost suspicious: they had spent six thousand years trying to avoid each other, only for it to fall apart in the span of fifty or so. But something still sits in his chest, something still sits in the back of his head and makes him think, makes him worry. He can’t exactly figure out why, or what it means, but he is six thousand years old and counting, and he’s learned to trust his instincts. 

Which is why he puts together the team. 

Strictly speaking, he doesn’t need a team. Strictly speaking he could just pay some vagrant off the street a hundred quid to waltz into the church with a thermos, but Crowley likes to add a little theatre. Even if he does have to put up with the strange witch hunter.

He’s not sure where the idea for the holy water really came from. He hadn’t thought of it so much as he’d focused on the part of his brain where it had been sitting waiting for him, as if it was something he’d thought of before and then filed away for safekeeping. But as soon as he thinks about, he realizes it’s a good idea; some kind of out, a worst case scenario in case he ever needed to escape from Hell. He hasn’t done anything that would send Hell after him with their pitchforks (figuratively speaking, they’d retired the pitchforks centuries ago), but Crowley, at heart, was a bit of a bastard who tended to cause trouble. It would be good to have something he could control. Just in case. 

He gets into the car and is about to start it up when he turns and sees Aziraphale in the passenger seat. 

“What are you doing here?”

“I needed a word with you,” Aziraphale says, voice oddly somber. 

“What?”

“I work in Soho. I hear things.” Crowley thinks  _ work  _ might be a bit of a stretch, since from what he’s seen Aziraphale treats potential customers like they’re particularly offensive pieces of gum on the sidewalk. “I hear that you’re setting up a caper to rob a church.” He turns to look at Crowley with the full weight of his gaze. “Crowley, it’s too dangerous. Holy water won’t just kill your body. It will destroy you completely.” That’s rather the point, Crowley wants to say, but he doesn’t. This feels a little bit like deja vu, for some strange reason that he can’t put his finger on, and it’s throwing him for a bit of a loop. 

Aziraphale lets out a heavy sigh. “But I can’t have you risking your life,” he says sadly. “Not even for something dangerous. So you can call off the robbery.” And then he produces a tartan thermos. Crowley is too shocked to even fully absorb the fact that it is a  _ tartan thermos.  _ He takes it from Aziraphale’s outstretched hands and holds it carefully. 

“Don’t go unscrewing the cap.”

“It’s the real thing?”

“The holiest,” Aziraphale says bitterly. 

Crowley stares down at the thermos, urging his hands not shake. “Should I say thank you?”

“Better not,” Aziraphale says.

“Can I drop you anywhere?”

“No thank you,” Aziraphale says. He must see something in Crowley’s face, because he says, “Oh, don’t look so disappointed. Perhaps one day we could, I don't know. Go for a picnic. Dine at the Ritz.”

“I'll give you a lift,” Crowley says, only slightly desperately. “Anywhere you want to go.”

Aziraphale looks at him, with such a look that if Crowley had breath in his lungs, he would lose it all. “You go too fast for me, Crowley,” he says solemnly. It feels like a slap in the face, and Crowley can do nothing but sit there, thermos of holy water in his hands, as Aziraphale gets out of the car. He watches the angel walk away, feeling very much like he’s ruined something he didn’t even know he had. 

* * *

Crowley tries to give him space, after that. Aziraphale reaches out a few times, inviting him over for wine, or seeing a show together, but something springs up between them, something Crowley can’t name. It feels a little bit like Crowley is trying to argue a point without being told half the information. He has a funny feeling that if he knew a bit more, he’d be able to figure out exactly what it was that made them so hesitant around each other, but there’s nothing he can do about it, short of talking to Aziraphale. And he certainly isn’t going to do  _ that.  _ He’s a demon, after all. Demons didn’t communicate. 

Perhaps it would have continued like that for centuries, Crowley too afraid to reach out, the two of them keeping each other at arm’s length, if the world hadn’t tried to end. But as he’s driving down the road with the literal Antichrist in his backseat, he comes to the decision that all bets are off. 

Aziraphale puts up a bit of a fight, of course, because he’s an angel, and most angels were, if he could use a common phrase, drinking the Kool-Aid. But Crowley is a demon, and a rather good one at that, and he has the added benefit of knowing a fair bit about Aziraphale, now. So it’s rather easy to tempt him over to the other side, as it were. All it really takes is mentioning the composers Hell has, and the wine, and the fact that eternity in Heaven would mean an eternity of the goddamn  _ Sound of Music.  _ The first rule of tempting someone, Crowley has learned over six thousand years, is that temptation has to already exist in their heart. You can’t teach a man to fish if he doesn’t want to fish, and you can’t convince a man to steal fish if he’s dead set against it. In order to be a good tempter, you had to know who to tempt, and who not to waste your time on. 

Aziraphale didn’t want the world to end. Crowley can see that clearly. So it’s not hard to convince him to join with Crowley, to sway the young Antichrist in a different direction. And as they drink, and make plans, and discuss all the things that Armageddon would ruin, that block that had been between them since that day in 1967 seems to disappear. It’s like uniting against a common evil has broken down whatever barriers they’d erected, whatever residual belief that  _ this is an angel and the enemy.  _ They were no longer agents of Heaven and Hell; they were Crowley and Aziraphale, and they were going to stop the Apocalypse. 

* * *

The problem is stopping the Apocalypse seems an awful lot like  _ babysitting.  _

It’s not so bad, really, but it is a large lifestyle change that takes some getting used to. The first thing he was planning to do once the world doesn’t end is figure out who invented pantyhose, and make their life (and death) eternal hell. He does like the heels, though, so that’s a bit of a plus. 

And there is one thing that Nanny Ashtoreth has that Crowley doesn’t -- Aziraphale. 

Or, well, Brother Francis, if you’re being particular, but it isn’t hard to see that underneath those horrible, horrible teeth, Aziraphale is the same person. Brimming with light and goodwill, Warlock takes quite a shining to Brother Francis, although he does reveal to Nanny one night that he can’t quite look him in the eye, because the teeth frighten him. 

It is so easy, during those years, to be around Aziraphale. He sets up in a small little cottage on the property, at the back of the gardens he does such a poor job of tending (Crowley makes a point to threaten the plants a few times a week, to ensure they do their best to thrive despite the fact that more often than not Aziraphale gets distracted from some book or another and doesn’t come to tend to them at all), and it is easy, and normal, and not remotely suspicious for Nanny Ashtoreth to head out there after she has put Warlock to bed, a bottle of wine in her hands. The staff all think they’re sleeping together, which isn’t, in Crowley’s mind, the  _ worst  _ thing. He tells Aziraphale it solidifies their cover stories, makes them seem more human, but really he just likes the way Aziraphale touches the back of his hand, or loops their arms together as they walk through the gardens. He comes to love being Nanny Ashtoreth; he comes to love seeing Aziraphale every day; he comes to love Warlock, little brat that he is. 

He always knew it would have to end, of course, but the payoff of not having the world end (and no more pantyhose) would surely have made up for the fact that he would have to say goodbye to the child, and he would have to go back to seeing Aziraphale sporadically, and he would have to stop pretending that this was ever a life he could have. 

He just never expected it to end like  _ this. _

“No dog,” he says. 

“No dog,” Aziraphale agrees. 

He looks over at the angel, in his stupid outfit and drawn on mustache. “Wrong boy,” he says, hoping Aziraphale will correct him, will make it better somehow. 

But Aziraphale just says, in the same defeated tone, “Wrong boy.”

* * *

It all goes rather quickly after that (partly because most of the time he’s doing ninety through central London). The nunnery doesn’t end up helping much, other than giving him a bit of fun with the guns. There is a moment, when he has Aziraphale pressed up against the wall, that he almost loses himself and leans in to kiss him, but the ex-nun thankfully interrupts them before he can do something stupid. The world was  _ ending,  _ after all; he couldn’t let himself get caught up in something as utterly ridiculous and useless as kissing an angel. What good would come of that? It’s not as if Aziraphale would ever -- 

No. It didn’t bear thinking about. 

Then he hits a girl, or rather she hits  _ him,  _ and he has to deal with the face Aziraphale gives him until he relents and agrees to drive her home, and after that he makes a plan with Aziraphale to ask his “group of human operatives” to try and search out the boy. He doesn’t tell Aziraphale what he’s thinking, which is that he had his doubts that Sargeant Shadwell could find a needle floating in his cup of diabetes-inducing tea, but it couldn’t hurt to put him on the case. Probably. It probably wouldn’t hurt. 

He’s getting increasingly more anxious, and increasingly more irritable, as time passes and he’s no closer to locating the missing Antichrist. He has the fate of the whole damned world on his shoulders, quite literally, and the clock is ticking down, and he has to find one small boy and his dog in a country filled with small boys and their dogs. 

He doesn’t know what to do. He calls Aziraphale. 

Aziraphale has nothing, either, which only serves to put Crowley in a worse mood, and then they get into a  _ fight,  _ which had never happened, not since they met. Sure, there was the occasional disagreement, over what to watch, which wine to break open -- but not like this. 

Crowley doesn’t want to fight with Aziraphale, not on top of everything else. So he says, “Enough. I’m leaving.”

“You can’t leave, Crowley,” Aziraphale says from behind him. “There isn’t anywhere to go.”

Crowley stops on the steps of the bandstand and turns back around, holding his arms out. “It’s a big universe,” he says, and then, because demons make it a habit not to think before they speak, he says, “Even if this all ends up in a puddle of burning goo, we can go off together.”

It feels like ripping out his heart and leaving it on the ground in front of the angel. Just because he won’t die from it doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt, to stand there, open and vulnerable and letting himself, for the first time since he’d met Aziraphale, to  _ want.  _ Giving himself permission to look. He takes everything that makes him who he is and he lays it at Aziraphale’s feet:  _ come with me. The world can burn to ash, as long as you’re beside me. _

It feels like so much longer than a hundred years. It feels like he’s loved Aziraphale for his whole eternal life, six thousand years and counting. Like God had built it into him when She made him, and it hadn’t burned away in the Fall. 

“Go off together? Listen to yourself,” Aziraphale says, but Crowley can see the way his eyes flick back and forth, the subtle trembling of his mouth, the way his fingers grip the sleeves of his coat. Crowley could recognize it from a mile away; it’s what he’s built to do. 

Aziraphale is  _ tempted.  _ There is a part of him, even if only a small part, that wants to follow Crowley to the ends of the universe. And that gives him the confidence to keep going. 

“I know we haven’t been friends for long --”

“Friends!” Aziraphale interrupts. “We’re not  _ friends.  _ We are an angel, and a demon. We have nothing whatsoever in common. I don’t even like you!”

That might sting a little, if Crowley didn’t recognize it for what it was, a last ditch attempt to avoid temptation. How often had he seen it? How often did the humans do this exact same dance, as they reached for another beer, as they kissed their best friend’s girlfriend, as they stood in a corner store shoving candy bars in their pockets? Aziraphale was trying to convince himself, but it was a losing argument. It always was. 

They always took another beer. They always cheated. Crowley wouldn’t be much of a demon if they didn’t. 

“You do,” he says, because it’s true. Aziraphale knows that as much as he does. 

“Even if I did know where the Antichrist was, I wouldn’t tell you! We’re on opposite sides!”

This is it. One last push. “We’re on  _ our side.” _

There -- Aziraphale would relent. Crowley could see that he wanted to, could read it in his body language. The angel who was unlike any angel Crowley had ever known, who indulged too much, who smiled at Crowley like he was worth it, who would have killed him that Christmas Day but wanted to try and talk it out first. Aziraphale who was, at the heart of him,  _ good,  _ so very good, but also a bit of a bastard. He wanted to come. He wanted it so very much. 

“There is no ‘our side’, Crowley. Not anymore. It’s over.”

His heart is in Aziraphale’s hands; he watches as it crumbles. 

“Right,” he says. It feels like his voice is being scraped over rocks. There’s no reason it should be like this. It had only been a hundred years. 

But it hurts as if it’s been six thousand, and no amount of logic will change that. 

“Well then,” he says, aiming for nonchalance and failing. “Have a good doomsday.”

And then he leaves, and he doesn’t look back. They all thought Lot’s wife was weak for turning around, but Crowley knows better now. How hard it is to watch the thing you love the most burn. 

* * *

Sulking won’t get anything done, so he goes home and tries to figure out where he can go that won’t get him killed, and won’t end up boring him to death. The problem with the cosmos is that it’s relatively abandoned. Not nearly as exciting as Earth and humans are. But Alpha Centauri should be sufficient enough, at least, to lay low for a couple centuries until the war ends and God starts over. 

And then, because there’s nothing else to really do, he goes to see a movie. That, however, doesn’t work out very well, and he hightails it out of there before Hastur can find him.

He has a plan on what to do about the fact that he’s a wanted demon, involving the tartan thermos still hidden at his flat, but before he puts it into motion, he tries one more time. One more temptation. 

“Angel!” He says, leaving the car parked haphazardly across the sidewalk and getting out. “I’m sorry, I apologize. Whatever I said, I didn’t mean it.” When Aziraphale does not seem all that moved, he says, “Work with me, I’m apologizing here. Good? Get in the car.”

“What?” Aziraphale says, looking at him like he’s grown two heads. “No.”

“The forces of Hell have figured out it was my fault,” he says, desperation tinging his voice. “But we can run away together. Alpha Centauri! Lots of spare planets up there, nobody would even notice us.”

“Crowley, you’re being ridiculous,” Aziraphale says sadly. “Look, I’m quite sure if I can just reach the right people, then I can get this all sorted out.”

Now it’s Crowley’s turn to look at him like he has two heads. “There’s aren’t any right people,” he says in disbelief. “There’s just God, moving in mysterious ways and not talking to any of us.” He hopes he doesn’t sound too bitter about that; he likes to give off the vibe that he doesn’t give two shits about God and the fact that She kicked him out of Heaven. It’s fine. He’s over it. 

“Well yes, and that’s why I’m going to have a word with the Almighty, and the Almighty will fix it.” Aziraphale says this so simply, as if it’s the answer to all their questions, as if you could just pick up the telephone and ring  _ God.  _ Crowley thinks that this blatant disregard for the way life works is why so many people have problems with religious folk. 

“That won’t happen,” he says. He’d love if God could be the saviour everyone always thought She was, but he knew better than anyone that when you needed Her the most, God wasn’t there. 

It had burned, when he Fell. People were wrong about demons; they weren’t demons because they rebelled. They were demons because there was no where else to go. Because when you are told that you are beyond salvation, you start to believe it.

“You’re so clever,” he says. “How can someone as clever as you be so stupid?”

Aziraphale looks at him, then, and Crowley thinks that there isn’t enough time. He hasn’t had enough time with him. Would it be different if he’d known and loved Aziraphale since the beginning? Would he be less desperate, if he’d had more time? Would six thousand years be enough?

And Aziraphale says, “I forgive you.” Just those words, but each one feels like a knife to the heart. 

He’s never been forgiven before. 

But it’s not enough, because he recognizes it for what it is: rejection. 

“I’m going home, angel,” he says, storming back to his car. “I’m getting my stuff, and I’m leaving, and when I’m off in the stars, I won’t even think about you.” He speeds off; he wonders if Aziraphale knew he was lying. 

* * *

And then there is this: the remains of Ligur on the floor, Hastur stuck in his voicemail. A burning shop around him, the smell of sulfur in his nose. Demons are supposed to like fire, but he finds himself wishing he could burn. 

It shouldn’t be this bad. It shouldn’t hurt so much. It’s only been a hundred years. 

The fire burns; Crowley burns with it.

Then there’s this: Aziraphale across from him, not dead but discorporated, and he has it all figured out, the absolutely brilliant bastard. And sitting in that pub, looking at the soft face of the angel in front of him, Crowley comes to a decision: he’s going to live. He’s going to stop Armageddon. And maybe after, when the dust settles, he’ll take Aziraphale’s hand and ask him to stay. 

* * *

Okay, so maybe in the end him and Aziraphale don’t actually help that much, but the world gets saved, does it not? So it doesn’t matter who did what, and it doesn’t matter who started it, and it certainly doesn’t matter who fudged the baby switch. The blame game never helped anyone. 

That is what he tells Aziraphale, at least, sitting on the bench in Tadfield. Aziraphale just gives him a look and takes another swig of wine, and later, on the bus that isn’t going to Oxford, he slips his hand in Crowley’s. They stay like that through the bus ride home, and on the way up to Crowley’s flat, fingers entwined all the way up until Aziraphale is standing in his doorway looking around. 

“It’s very… clean,” he says carefully. “Why do I sense fear?”

“That’d be the plants,” Crowley says. “They don’t grow well unless you threaten them a little.”

Aziraphale gives him a sharp look, but Crowley can remember the poor garden at the Dowling’s, and so does not pay any attention to his disapproval. Instead he walks into his flat and says, aiming at casual, “You can stay as long as you need.”

Aziraphale smiles at him softly, and they both just stand there, looking around. It is so uncomfortably  _ awkward,  _ and Crowley has the sudden fear that things will go back to the way they used to be, now, with the wall between them.  _ You go too fast for me, Crowley.  _

“Do you --”

“I think we should --”

They both stop. Crowley gestures at Aziraphale to continue, who shakes his head and says, “No, dear, you go.”

“Do you… want a drink?”

That’s not what he had been going to say. Truthfully he’s not sure what he was going to say, just that he needed to do something to fill the stifling silence. Aziraphale looks like he’s about to decline, but then he says, “Actually, that would be nice. And do you mind if I just… make a few changes?”

Crowley shrugs. “By all means.”

“Oh, good,” Aziraphale says, and with a wave of his hand the couch that normally sits at the back of his store is sitting in Crowley’s living room. “That’s better,” he says happily. “Surely you don’t only sit in that chair?”

He does, actually. He thinks it looks cool. He doesn’t mention this to Aziraphale, just grabs a bottle of wine. He doesn’t grab any glasses, just takes a swig and then passes it off to Aziraphale. They had been sharing a bottle on the bench, but it feels different, this time. More intimate. Crowley wonders if Aziraphale noticed that he took the statue from the church. 

Aziraphale hands the bottle back to him, fingertips brushing, but before Crowley can work up the courage to tell him -- well, anything, really, Aziraphale clears his throat and says, “I think we should discuss the likely consequences we will have to face, now.”

He takes a long drink; he’s going to need it. “Oh, I imagine Hell will break down my door at any moment and drag me down there to execute me.” He tries to sound calm and nonchalant about this, and Aziraphale is nice enough not to mention the way his voice breaks. “You should be fine, though. Slap on the wrist, maybe a rude note. It’s Heaven, angel. It’ll be all right.”

Aziraphale gives him a stern look. “Even if that were true -- which it isn’t, and we both know it, so I don’t know who you’re trying to fool -- do you really think I would just let them take you? Don’t be absurd.”

Crowley is silent, sufficiently scolded, but he can’t help the sensation in his chest, the knowledge that Aziraphale will fight for him. “I didn’t realize you cared so much, angel.” He tries to sound cool, like the answer doesn’t matter to him. He fails. 

“Then you’re a bigger fool than I thought,” Aziraphale says. “As it is, it doesn’t matter. I will likely face the full extent of Heaven’s wrath.” He sighs heavily and takes the wine from Crowley’s hands. “I think this might be the end of the line for us both, my dear.”

“I’m sorry,” Crowley says. Aziraphale pats him on the knee. 

“I’m not. I would face hellfire a thousand times over to save them.”

Crowley laughs bitterly. “I imagine I have a bath in holy water waiting for me. It’s a shame we can’t just swap places, hmm?” 

He stops. Aziraphale stops. They both turn to look at each other, and a plan is already starting to form in Crowley’s head. 

“Could we --”

But Aziraphale’s face drops. “It’s a good idea, in theory. But I don’t think we’d be able to pull it off. We don’t know each other well enough, my dear. I do not have your… swagger.”

“Swagger,” Crowley repeats, eyebrows raised. Aziraphale huffs. 

“Oh you know. That thing you do with your hips.”

“I believe the word you’re looking for is walking, angel.”

“That is not walking. There’s far too much…  _ gyrating.” _

“Gyrating?” Crowley laughs. “Gyrating, imagine. I think you’re just preoccupied with my hips.”

Aziraphale looks away. “Be that as it may,” he says primly, “They would see through us immediately.” He turns back to Crowley, and his eyes are sad. “If only we had more time. There are… so many things I would like to do.”

Crowley swallows. He doesn’t have to, strictly speaking, but it feels appropriate for the situation. 

“Aziraphale,” he says, voice low. “If we’re going to die, don’t you think we should go out with a bang?”

Aziraphale looks back at him, gaze steady. “‘In this last of meeting places,’” he recites softly, “‘We grope together, And avoid speech.’”

Crowley leans forward and kisses him. 

The world starts to spin again. 

He hauls Aziraphale into his lap, kissing down his neck, and Aziraphale grips him by the shoulders, chants his name,  _ Crowley, Crowley, Crowley.  _

They are going to die. Crowley has died so many deaths over the years, each time Aziraphale was ripped away from him, but there will be no saving kiss this time. They are together; they are whole; they are going to die. 

But he has six thousand years of memories back in his head. He pulls away and twines his fingers through Aziraphale’s hair, and then he says, “What about now, angel? Do you think we could pull it off now?”

Aziraphale smiles at him, and Crowley feels that fluttering in his chest again, that forbidden hope. It doesn’t feel forbidden, now. 

Aziraphale kisses him again, and then, with six thousand years of knowledge back in their heads, they craft their plan. 

* * *

“Ah, Aziraphale,” Gabriel says. “So glad you could join us.” As if they’d run into each other at a fucking coffee shop. 

“You could have just sent a message,” he says, perfectly polite. “I mean, a kidnapping in broad daylight.”

“Call it what it was,” Gabriel says, opening his arms. “An extraordinary rendition. Now, have we heard from our new associate?”

“He’s on his way,” Uriel says. 

“He’s on his way!” Gabriel echoes excitedly. “I think you’re going to like this, I really do. And I bet you didn’t see this one coming.” He winks at Crowley, who resists the urge to roll his eyes. “By the way,” Gabriel continues conversationally. “I see you’ve got all your memories back in your head. Don’t worry, I won’t erase them again. I’ll let you die fully intact.”

“How kind,” Crowley says dryly. It occurs to him that they’re not even giving Aziraphale a trial. He shouldn’t be surprised by Heaven’s cruelty, not anymore.  _ He  _ certainly didn’t get a trial, all those eons ago. 

One of the lesser demons arrives, whistling lowly. “You don’t get this view in the basement,” he says appreciatively. Crowley doesn’t really think it’s that nice of a view, not really; too bright, too clean, too clinical. And then, just as they had expected, he lights the circle on fire. Crowley watches it spin, watches it grow. He could have saved him the trip. 

“So!” Gabriel says, and Crowley looks back over at him. “With one act of treason, you averted the war.”

“Well, I think the greater good --” Crowley starts, knowing Aziraphale, knowing what he believes. Six thousand years of watching the angel, of falling in love with him over and over again. Just like that muddy day in 1914, Aziraphale would try to talk it out. 

Gabriel does not let him finish. “Don’t talk to me about the greater good, sunshine, I’m the Archangel fucking Gabriel.” Crowley wants to tell him Aziraphale is worth ten of them, a hundred of them. Aziraphale is worth more than every angel put together. 

But he holds his tongue. It wouldn’t do to blow their cover, no matter how much he wants to burn the wretched angel’s face off. 

“I don’t suppose I could persuade you to reconsider? We’re meant to be the good guys, for Heaven’s sake.” One last chance, one last shot. Despite everything, Crowley wishes more than anything that they would listen. That they would decide this wasn’t fair, and at least give him a trial. He wants them to prove that they are everything Aziraphale believes they can be. He wants them to be  _ more. _

They don’t. Heaven continues, even now, to let him down. 

“Well, for Heaven’s sake, we are meant to make examples out of traitors. So into the flame.”

Crowley stands up, flexing his hands. He can feel the heat of the flames; he’s quite looking forward to this, actually. 

“Lovely knowing you all,” he says, trying to keep his rage out of his voice. “May we meet on a better occasion.” 

“Shut your stupid mouth and die already,” Gabriel says. Crowley thinks of the way they look at Aziraphale, like he’s nothing. He thinks of the way Gabriel always smiled when he invaded Crowley’s mind and took his memories. 

He steps into the fire. 

God, it really had been too long since he’d had a firebath. The flames lick over his skin, and he feels warm down to his toes. His skin is going to look  _ excellent  _ after this. He turns around to look at the archangels, who all have matching expressions of horror on their faces, and then, remembering the way Gabriel had said  _ I’ll let you die fully intact,  _ he opens his mouth and breathes out flames. 

They jump out of the way. He hadn’t been trying to kill them, not really. It wouldn’t have been the  _ worst  _ thing, certainly, but it wasn’t his intention. 

“What is he?” Uriel asks. Crowley takes one last deep breath and then steps out of the flames. 

“Whatever I am,” he says cheerily, “I think it best that you not find out.”

The angels all watch him warily. He straightens his jacket, smiles at them all, and then turns to leave. 

“Oh, Gabriel,” he adds, turning back around. They are still all just standing there. “I think it best that you leave my head untampered with for now, don’t you agree? For both of our sakes.” And then he gives them Aziraphale’s nicest smile before he walks out. 

Leaving Heaven on his own terms was much nicer, he had to admit. 

* * *

“I asked the Archangel Michael for a bath towel,” Aziraphale says proudly. Crowley looks up at him. 

“You didn’t.”

“I did!” Aziraphale is so  _ gleeful,  _ so free. Crowley has never seen him like this. He wants to see him like this for the rest of his eternal life. “And a rubber duck.”

Crowley laughs, and Aziraphale drops back down beside him on the bed, his hand snaking up Crowley’s shirt. 

“Do you think they’ll leave us alone now?” Crowley asks. 

“If I had to guess, they’ll pretend it never happened. But I do believe that they won’t tamper with our memories, anymore. I made very clear what would happen to them if they did.”

“So did I,” Crowley says. “Nicely, of course. I was very polite.”

“Would have loved to see that,” Aziraphale teases. 

Crowley leans forward and kisses him. He had wanted more time, and now they had it. Years stretched out in front of him, where he could touch and kiss and learn every dip and curve of Aziraphale. He could worship him the way he deserves, the way he’s always wanted to. It is almost too much to bear. 

Almost. 

“Would you like to go to lunch?” He asks. “I think I can probably swing us a table at the Ritz.”

“Hmm,” Aziraphale says. And then he  _ grins,  _ almost predatory, and swings himself over Crowley, hands pushing up his shirt. “Later, I think.”

Crowley grins. “Later,” he agrees. 

( _ Later  _ turns out to be five full days later, but it doesn’t really matter. There is nothing but time, now.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> once again a big thank you to my betas and to my artist, and also to my husband, who hates when i join big bangs because i leave everything til the last minute and then stay up all night stressing but supports me anyway lmao 
> 
> please please please go give some love to the [AMAZING piece of art by andva-ri!!](https://andva-ri.tumblr.com/post/190541596413/my-piece-for-the-good-omens-big-bang-2019-for) it's so beautiful i can't believe i was blessed with this 
> 
> feel free to follow my twitter @aravenlikea, goodbye, i love u


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